Kazakhstan, Astana, June 13 / Trend, D. Mukhtarov /
Central Asian countries should jointly fight extremism, the director of the State Commission on Religious Affairs of Kyrgyzstan Abdulatif Zhumabaev said.
"Taking into consideration the real threat posed by extremism and its tendency to inflame the conflictogenic process, I suggest that the authorized state agencies for religious affairs in Central Asia discuss the possibility of a collective initiative for the creation of a board or bureau on religious affairs," Zhumabaev said during the international conference "The Role of Religions in the CIS countries " held in Astana on Thursday.
According to him, the board or bureau of the authorized bodies of religious affairs should also have the function of coordinating interactions amongst the member states of the Council on joint action to ensure the security from extremist threats.
He said that, as in other countries of Central Asia, the strengthening of religion's role is also observed in Kyrgyzstan. In this regard, the increasing activities of various religious groups and movements require special attention.
"The wide spread of new religious views in the republic that did not have analogues in the past in Kyrgyzstan, is also considered amongst the important problems of the sphere of religion," Zhumabaev said.
According to him, every year, the country is visited by hundreds of preachers from different countries.
"Extremist attempts to expand their base via women and the young poses a distinct threat," Zhumabaev said.
During the conference, the Chairman of Agency for Religious Affairs of Kazakhstan Kairat Lama Sharif, offered to create a unified system of confession monitoring of the CIS.
There is a need to establish a uniform system in the CIS for confessional monitoring, that will allow to monitor the situation in our countries, and to develop specific recommendations for the prevention of conflicts arising from the direct or indirect involvement of the religious factor, Kairat Lama Sharif said.
According to him, common efforts and cooperation from public and religious associations are required.
"Stabilization of the religious situation in Eurasia depends on many factors. Priests and how they are trained are amongst these factors. Yet this issue was dealt by the missionaries from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Turkey, and India. The world is again, on the verge of religious wars as it was in the Middle Ages. Certainly, this problem requires scientific understanding and practical actions," Kairat Lama Sharif said.
He said that everything mentioned lead to the conclusion that religion today acts as an pivot for integration in the post-Soviet space.